After announcing last year that it was searching for at least one more launch …

SpaceX has filed a notice of intent with the FAA, indicating it wants to conduct an Environmental Impact Study for the construction of a new spaceport in Cameron County, Texas, on the Gulf and very near the northern border of Mexico. The site could make Texas a powerhouse in commercial space.

The filing, which was apparently first found by enthusiast site HobbySpace, reads: "Under the Proposed Action, SpaceX proposes to construct a vertical launch area and a control center area to support up to 12 commercial launches per year. The vehicles to be launched include the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy (up to two per year), and a variety of smaller reusable suborbital launch vehicles… All launch trajectories would be to the east over the Gulf of Mexico."

SpaceX has been considering the use of NASA's historical Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral for Falcon Heavy launches, in addition to sites in Alaska, California, Puerto Rico and Virginia. The company already uses Launch Complex 40 at Canaveral for the Falcon 9. It's unknown at this time whether SpaceX is still interested in 39A.

The company's founder, Elon Musk, spoke late last year about a "commercial Cape Canaveral," and part of the reason may be costs. SpaceX would like to launch at least four Falcon Heavies per year to keep its costs below $1000 per pound, a price that even the Chinese government has said that it cannot beat.

A Few Possible Political Implications

The filing is intriguing for a number of reasons, not least of which is the strong opposition by the Texas congressional delegation to NASA's Commercial Crew program. SpaceX is one of four NASA partners in Commercial Crew, the object of which is to develop private sector access to the International Space Station. Texas seems to dominate the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, with five members, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson has been one of Commercial Crew's strongest critics.

Last year, the House cut NASA's $830 Commercial Crew budget request to $300 million, delaying American access to the International Space Station by at least a year. This year the House seems poised to do the same, with strong opposition to the program expressed by the committee's chairman, Ralph Hall (R, Texas).

Texas' role as a space state stem from the actions of Lyndon B. Johnson and Congressman Albert Thomas in the early 1960's. Thomas was the state representative from Houston and the most influential force on the House Appropriations Committee when it came to spaceflight. He was also a powerful man in Houston and a close friend to LBJ, Morgan Davis of Humble Oil, and George Brown of Brown and Root Construction Company, which later became KBR.

Local businesses were heavily involved as well. Humble Oil donated the land for the Johnson Spaceflight Center using Rice University as an intermediary, with the contingency that it must be used for the new center or returned. George Brown of Brown and Root, who sat on Rice's board, handled the mechanics of have Rice in turn donate the land to NASA. Humble Oil did exceptionally well on the land surrounding the Center, which shot up in value, Brown and Root secured the $60M construction contract, and the space program gained the steadfast support of Rep. Albert Thomas. It's not known whether Thomas got anything material out of the multi-way deal.

In some sense, SpaceX's choice of Texas has the flavor of another chapter in Congressional spending politics, although it's not clear whether a proposed Texas spaceport would be enough to gain more Congressional support.

Some Practical Advantages

Politics aside, from the perspective of the population of Cameron County, the choice of Texas could potentially cement the state as a commercial space hub and eventually bring in tens of thousands of jobs. According to the Environmental Impact Report, operations would consist of up to 12 launches per year with a maximum of two Falcon Heavy launches. All Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches would be expected to have commercial payloads, including satellites and experimental payloads, and those payloads would be integrated in Texas before launching east over the Gulf of Mexico.

The site is also much closer to the SpaceX integration and testing facility in McGregor, Texas than Cape Canaveral. The mention of suborbital launch vehicles in the EIS filing suggests that SpaceX research efforts to land and reuse a first stage could be hosted from a Texas launch site. By launching east from Texas, it may be possible for the first stage to make a powered landing in Florida without having to perform a retrograde maneuver, going some way towards realizing Musk's dream of making the Falcon 9 reusable.

SpaceX could also potentially reduce costs and delays by launching from Texas. There's plenty of red tape associated with Kennedy Space Center, and the center is often reserved for large blocks of time by other launchers. If SpaceX had its own pad, it wouldn't have to share. Regardless of whether Congress delays American space access to ISS for another year, a private Texas spaceport seems attractive for the company, which has the majority of the commercial launch market sewn up over the next few years.

Last year, the House cut NASA's $830 Commercial Crew budget request to $300 million, delaying American access to the International Space Station by at least a year. This year the House seems poised to do the same, with strong opposition to the program expressed by the committee's chairman, Ralph Hall (R, Texas).

So why doesn't SpaceX take a page out of the political handbook and state that, "Apparently the House is against creating jobs in the state of Texas".

Quote:

...the choice of Texas could potentially cement the state as a commercial space hub and eventually bring in tens of thousands of jobs.

Living in South Texas myself, I am really excited. If everything goes right and they end up building it down here, it will seriously improve the state of things. I can't imagine why a Texas congressman would not want this.

I think the article just fails to get the connection across clearly. My understanding is that the Texas legislators in the recent past have cut the commercial program, so SpaceX is proposing a Texas launch site, in part to try and win them over. I'm all for it, there's a lot of uncertainly in Clear Lake right now (where JSC is), and this would probably turn things around.

Whatever happened to that commercial spaceport in New Mexico? Why aren't they just using or expanding that?

As an inland site, Spaceport America is not suitable for conventional multi-stage rockets which drop stages downrange. Although SpaceX plans to evolve Falcon 9 into a fully-reusable launch system over time, the current system drops the first stage a couple hundred miles downrange (the second stage either burns up on reentry or maneuvers into a designated graveyard orbit). So in order to evolve the system, they need a launch site that supports their current expendable launch vehicle operations and allows them to drop the first stage into a large body of water.

Whatever happened to that commercial spaceport in New Mexico? Why aren't they just using or expanding that?

Spaceport America is currently intended to support suborbital flight, and if it is ever used for orbital flight, it will be in a form vastly different than the Falcon series, or any other standard rocket.

The problem is that if you're launching east from the Las Cruces area (you launch east so you don't spend an absurd amount of fuel fighting the spin of the Earth), you'll end up flying right over Dallas and plenty of other populated areas. If something goes wrong, you're putting a lot of people on the ground at risk. This is why currently the US launches east from Florida and south from Vandenburg, CA, and why a coastal Texas site is being considered here.

I'm also from south Texas and this is pretty exciting! I'm looking forward to see how this will further develop, bringing jobs and tourists to a place people never knew existed until now.

Most people in Texas know Brownsville exists, they just have it mentally mapped as Mexico.

I’ve wondered, what are the physics of elevation? They are going to be effectively at sea level. How much difference is there in fuel (thus fuel tank size) launching from several thousand feet elevation?

Most people in Texas know Brownsville exists, they just have it mentally mapped as Mexico.

I’ve wondered, what are the physics of elevation? They are going to be effectively at sea level. How much difference is there in fuel (thus fuel tank size) launching from several thousand feet elevation?

It looks like she is concerned about taking money away from the Orion program to fund commercial programs.

I was about to reply with something similar and you beat me to it. Internally, there is a bunch of budget in-fighting at NASA over SLS/Orion (big vehicle, NASA run human spaceflight) vs commercial launch (CCDEV). JSC sees SpaceX mostly as a competitor for funding, not a 'partner in spaceflight'. This is due, in part, to the location of program offices and the astronaut corps out of JSC which have been in chaos since Shuttle's cancellation.

KSC stepped out of this some and saw commercial as a chance to capitalize but as mentioned in the article, is not willing to reduce it's red-tape to fully welcome private companies.

It looks like she is concerned about taking money away from the Orion program to fund commercial programs.

Its quite simple, she wants the pork flowing to the companies that will in turn provide large donations and make voters happy by providing jobs on programs that burn through billions of tax dollars, yet never launch. The heavy launch vehicle SLS and the Orion capsule are set to carry a crew in space until the end of the decade and the cost of it will basically limit it to one launch ever couple years. That doesn't make for much of a program. And now they are trying to have commercial crew ran under typical FAR contracts which will inflate costs, dramatically increase red tape, and slow the entire process down. Government runs business very badly, which is why commercial crew shouldn't be ran like a typical government program, but that means they don't get the pork in their districts so its bad. Even though the longer we hold it back the longer we have to pay Russia $460 million a year for rides to our own space station.

She is not part of the solution. I vote independent, but I am amazed at how a Republican senator can be against private business versus government in this case when even the Air Force auditors concluded that if NASA had run the projects of building the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, the costs would be 2 to 3 times higher then they have been, and the time to complete would have added another 2-3 years.

You mean to "reduce" its costs to $1000 per pound. You can't "keep" your costs below $1000 per pound if your costs aren't there yet. $59.5 million divided by 23,000 pounds = $2587 per pound. The numbers are right in the linked article.

"smaller reusable suborbital launch vehicles..."

First, SpaceX has yet to demonstrate reusability of its launchers.

Second, the market for smaller launch vehicles is very limited. That's why SpaceX has put its Falcon 1 program on hold. After finally getting a successful launch, they haven't launched one since then. It's very hard to compete with converted ICBMs like the Russian Dnepr -- get the rocket for free, pay only for refurbishing, fueling, and launch services. It's much more lucrative to go after the NASA contracts with the larger rockets.

Third, the market for smaller suborbital launch vehicles is even smaller.

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Elon Musk certainly has great ambitions. He also has an annoying habit of stretching the truth and playing to people's unrealistic expectations. That Mars bit? Pure hokum. But perhaps that's the kind of Reality Distortion Field you need to succeed as a space startup. It is, after all, rocket science.

I've lived in Clear Lake (suburb, now part of Houston) for a long time and the NASA hierarchy has turned bureaucratic over the years. A lot of those guys don't understand that unless they let go a little, there won't be jobs for anybody! The Russians, Europeans and Chinese will get all the business. I think its a crime that we have to pay the Russians to get our crews to the ISS, something US taxpayers paid the most for.

There ought to be more than just one or two launch sites here in the states. ESO launches from Guiana in South America, the launch site has been practically 100% commercial from the beginning. We (the US) need to start competing or we'll end up paying for ANY access to space!

While you're correct about physics, that has nothing to do with Texas's spaceflight role since nothing was launched from Texas. Mission Control could have been put almost anywhere.

Although "Chicago, we have a problem" doesn't sound as good to me.

The runner-up for Mission Control was Cambridge, Massachusetts. The location would've been next to the MIT campus, right where the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center is today.

It would've been very interesting, that's for sure. For example, the Apollo Guidance Computer was developed at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. If Mission Control had been in Cambridge, they could've done some of the troubleshooting face-to-face, rather than over the telephone.

The site is also much closer to the SpaceX integration and testing facility in McGregor, Texas than Cape Canaveral. The mention of suborbital launch vehicles in the EIS filing suggests that SpaceX research efforts to land and reuse a first stage could be hosted from a Texas launch site. By launching east from Texas, it may be possible for the first stage to make a powered landing in Florida without having to perform a retrograde maneuver, going some way towards realizing Musk's dream of making the Falcon 9 reusable.

Controlled landings in Fla..... Slight problem with this thought proces is that between Texas' East Coast and Florida's West Coast is a no-fly zone that extends out from MacDill Airforce Base out of Tampa Bay. They use it for flight and weapons testing - manuevers - practice - and so on out over the Gulf. I assume there are also ceiling/ "hard deck" restrictions for anything airborne in and around the area. Just adds more complications to the logistics. I don't think NASA landed anything in Florida during the Shuttle era - not sure why though.

wicked_gk wrote:

I'm also from south Texas and this is pretty exciting! I'm looking forward to see how this will further develop, bringing jobs and tourists to a place people never knew existed until now.

This won't end up being "disney-land" style tourism and it won't be like it was during the Shuttle era either. Their marketing group will have to push it big time for folks to give a damn about what will essentially be commercial cargo transportation - doesn't it sound oh so exciting kids !

What talzara said. Musk is a huckster that over promises and under deliver yet somehow finds a way for others with deep pockets to invest. Just wonder how long before he sues the first person that tells the truth about the actual cost if he is ever able to launch.

What talzara said. Musk is a huckster that over promises and under deliver yet somehow finds a way for others with deep pockets to invest. Just wonder how long before he sues the first person that tells the truth about the actual cost if he is ever able to launch.

Ever able to launch? I have several videos on my HD of Falcon9 test-launches, how's your space program going?

The site is also much closer to the SpaceX integration and testing facility in McGregor, Texas than Cape Canaveral. The mention of suborbital launch vehicles in the EIS filing suggests that SpaceX research efforts to land and reuse a first stage could be hosted from a Texas launch site. By launching east from Texas, it may be possible for the first stage to make a powered landing in Florida without having to perform a retrograde maneuver, going some way towards realizing Musk's dream of making the Falcon 9 reusable.

Controlled landings in Fla..... Slight problem with this thought proces is that between Texas' East Coast and Florida's West Coast is a no-fly zone that extends out from MacDill Airforce Base out of Tampa Bay. They use it for flight and weapons testing - manuevers - practice - and so on out over the Gulf. I assume there are also ceiling/ "hard deck" restrictions for anything airborne in and around the area. Just adds more complications to the logistics. I don't think NASA landed anything in Florida during the Shuttle era - not sure why though.

MOST of the shuttle missions after Challenger landed in Florida. Came in over the Pacific, up over Texas, and back down to the Cape. Columbia was on that trajectory when she broke up - which is why it was over Texas and not the middle of the Pacific, where she would've been at that point if she were landing at Edwards in California. Any MOA or restricted area operated by the DoD would be giving a bye to the Shuttle flying through, though. NASA has flown quite a few DoD missions, and the two departments work together closely.

If the area you're talking about is an MOA (I haven't looked at a chart), it has posted operations times and dates where it's closed to civilian traffic. At other times, even the lightest sportplane can fly righ through. If it's a restricted area, SpaceX will have to go to the extraordinary length of making a phone call to the responsible agency and asking permission to fly their booster through the airspace on a certain date and time.

You mean to "reduce" its costs to $1000 per pound. You can't "keep" your costs below $1000 per pound if your costs aren't there yet. $59.5 million divided by 23,000 pounds = $2587 per pound. The numbers are right in the linked article.

Quoted cost for a Falcon Heavy launch is $80-100M. Payload to LEO is 120,000 pounds.

talzara wrote:

"smaller reusable suborbital launch vehicles..."

First, SpaceX has yet to demonstrate reusability of its launchers.

The EIS allows SpaceX to test the reusability of its launchers, beginning with the first stage 'Grasshopper' project. Unless SpaceX is planning to share the spaceport with suborbital companies like Armadillo, it's likely that the EIS proposal is strictly referring to SpaceX research and development.

talzara wrote:

Second, the market for smaller launch vehicles is very limited. That's why SpaceX has put its Falcon 1 program on hold. After finally getting a successful launch, they haven't launched one since then. It's very hard to compete with converted ICBMs like the Russian Dnepr -- get the rocket for free, pay only for refurbishing, fueling, and launch services. It's much more lucrative to go after the NASA contracts with the larger rockets.

The Falcon 9 is well-regarded in the U.S. right now for having brought the launch market back to the U.S. Although it has yet to prove itself in terms of long-term reliability, it has pretty well eaten up every commercial launch for the next several years. The last time I counted there were 35 Falcon 9 launches on the manifest.

talzara wrote:

Third, the market for smaller suborbital launch vehicles is even smaller.

That is has been true in the past, but suborbital tourist launches may balloon the market. Virgin Galactic claims they have 500 tickets sold, and Futron's market surveys seem to bear out the idea that demand is high.

talzara wrote:

Elon Musk certainly has great ambitions. He also has an annoying habit of stretching the truth and playing to people's unrealistic expectations. That Mars bit? Pure hokum. But perhaps that's the kind of Reality Distortion Field you need to succeed as a space startup. It is, after all, rocket science.

I have yet to see an instance of Elon Musk stretching the truth, and in fact in my experience he seems to go to great effort to package his ambitions with disclaimers. Do you have a specific instance you can cite?

You mean to "reduce" its costs to $1000 per pound. You can't "keep" your costs below $1000 per pound if your costs aren't there yet. $59.5 million divided by 23,000 pounds = $2587 per pound. The numbers are right in the linked article.

Not too many years ago, commercial launch costs were over $10,000 a pound. $2,500 and change is a HUGE step in the process. And I was about to question your numbers, but the author just beat me to it. But let's say you're right. Given that level of cost reduction, I'd say their odds of getting under $1,000 with a certain number of launches per year is probably realistic. Especially once they get the Falcon Heavy going - it uses essentially three Falcon 9 first stages in parallel - which means you're making a lot more first stages, and prices come down due to economies of scale. The Falcon 9 launch price should come down substantially, too, in that case.

talzara wrote:

Elon Musk certainly has great ambitions. He also has an annoying habit of stretching the truth and playing to people's unrealistic expectations. That Mars bit? Pure hokum. But perhaps that's the kind of Reality Distortion Field you need to succeed as a space startup. It is, after all, rocket science.

Dude, what's your beef with Musk and SpaceX? You've got two posts in here, both bashing SpaceX rather strongly. Yeah, they had some troubles with the Falcon 1. That's expected in this business. But the Falcon 9 has a flawless launch record so far, and put the prototype Dragon capsule into orbit, from where it was subsequently successfully returned and is now being refurbished.

The guy hasn't achieved all his goals yet, but basically he's done what he's said he'd do. And considering all the factors involved, has been remarkably successful at it so far.

If you got laid off from NASA or something, blame the government. SpaceX is just doing the job for which they've been contracted.

Third, the market for smaller suborbital launch vehicles is even smaller.

That is has been true in the past, but suborbital tourist launches may balloon the market. Virgin Galactic claims they have 500 tickets sold, and Futron's market surveys seem to bear out the idea that demand is high.

And most of Virgin's ticket sales are by consumers. They've recently been eagerly hooking up with NASA and other agencies to fly government researchers and their payloads on the SS2. Turns out that, even with a strong tourist market, that may end up being a very large source of revenue. All of a sudden it seems like everyone has realized that you don't have to go into orbit to go into "space". If you only need a few minutes of microgravity, something like SS2 can give you an awful lot of research volume for not a lot of money, in the space scheme of things.

XCOR has been cashing in on this, too, even though they haven't yet flown their vehicle. They've got an external payload cannister that can expose experiments to space. My money is on them getting almost all their revenue this way, since they can only carry one paying passenger at a time on the tourist market.

Does anyone else notice that nearly everywhere in Cameron County Texas is withing mortar range of the Mexican boarder or is it just my Mexican drug cartel, do anything for money, paranoid self?

Well, being from South Texas (10mi from border), I can say that I haven't seen any news regarding mortar fire from the cartels yet so I think you might be a bit overly paranoid. But if your paranoid side needs something to think about, we do have spillover violence, but its usually small arms fire with the occasional grenade thrown into a bar or something along those lines.

Back onto topic about the launchpad, I think this would be a great idea and a great asset to this area. Cameron country is full of open land and if something were to happen, the Gulf of Mexico is just right there. We do have a lot of tourism, mostly from Mexican's shopping like there's no end to their money, the Winter Texans that come from up north during the fall/winter seasons, and the spring breakers from all over in March. This station wouldn't really have to try too hard to make their cash.